LCD technology is widely used in various consumer electronic products, for example, notebook computers, PDAs, mobile phones, etc., due to several advantages such as high portability, low power consumption, zero radioactive pollution, and so on, and has become very popular. In recent years, LCDs have even taken the place of cathode-ray tube (CRT) displays used in traditional desktop computers. LCD can be further categorized into three types according to its light source: transmissive, reflective, and transflective. Among them, a transmissive type LCD provides light by employing a backlight module, however, its power consumption is relatively larger and display performance is rather poor when the ambient light is too bright. In a reflective type LCD, on the other hand, the transparent electrode layer is replaced by a reflective electrode layer while external light acts as the light source without using a backlight module, but the brightness is uneven and LCDs of this type do not work very well when the ambient light is insufficient. As a result, a transflective type LCD becomes the target for further development.
With reference to FIG. 1, in a conventional transflective LCD 100, there exist a first substrate 102, a second substrate 106 parallel to the first substrate 102, and a liquid crystal layer 104 situated sealed between the first substrate 102 and the second substrate 106. A reflective region 101 and a transmissive region 103 exist in each of the sub-pixels in the LCD 100. For display, the LCD 100 utilizes a backlight source and the ambient light source. The backlight source provides a light beam T1 through the transmissive region 103, whereas the ambient light source provides light beams R1 and R2 respectively in the transmissive region 103 and the reflective region 101. Because the reflective light of light beam R1 is relatively weaker compared with than that of light beam R2, the effect of the reflective light of light beam R1 will can be ignored in the following discussion. The problem of poor display performance when the ambient light is too bright is solved by using the reflective electrode 105. However, as can be observed in FIG. 1, the reflection efficiency of the light beam R2 can not be effectively improved due to the nature limitations of the reflective electrode 105, and moreover, the reflection direction is not always the best viewing angle for the user.
Transflective LCDs have an advantage in that no extra processing is required to manufacture transflective components used in regular transmissive LCDs, thereby solving the issues of poor display performance when the ambient light is too bright. However, the reflection efficiency of traditional transflective panels can not be notably increased due to the above-described issues, therefore necessitating a way which is easy to practice and cost-effective, to increase the reflection efficiency of the LCDs.